Huawei’s video aggregation comes to Europe

Huawei has announced that its Video Aggregation service, offering the latest regional and international video content and applications from all over the world, will be launched in Europe before the end of this year.

This follows a successful roll-out of the technology in the Middle East and China, where the telco-partnered OTT (Over-The-Top) service is already being streamed by 8 million TV users, keen to watch their favourite Bollywood, Hollywood, Arabic and Chinese movies and series on any device.

“To test market reaction in Europe, we are planning to launch the service phase by phase,” explained Dr. Yiming Cao, Vice-President of Carrier Software at Huawei. “In an initial stage, we will focus on OTT Video, the app being available in IoS and Android smartphones, offering excellent experiences to meet European users’ needs.”

Stable and advanced platform support: cloud-computing technologies based on open platforms.

The app will become available in 2016 on Android set-top-boxes, allowing a multi-screen sharing experience with home TVs, although it will be possible to watch Smart Video Cloud offerings everywhere, at home or on the go, on smartphones, tablets or TVs.

Video will not be the only offer to European users. Huawei also plans to introduce games to the market from its partners in 2016. “We are aware that a large number of European users are also keen to play games on TV, since a bigger screen can definitely enable a better experience, especially during action or strategy games,” said Dr. Cao. “The fact is most mobile games on Google Play currently can’t fit onto a TV screen. Thanks to advanced technology, Huawei is introducing a new tool that can convert most mobile games to fit a variety of TV screens with only minor development efforts from game vendors. We are also making it possible to play the game on the TV via a smartphone.”

The video service will reach end users via either Huawei’s distribution channel or those of the telcos partnering with Huawei. A Smart Video Cloud Europe centre has been set up in the UK dedicated to the building of a European digital video eco-system with the cooperation of telcos and Huawei’s local and global partners.

This localised business operation will help European telcos and other Huawei partners develop video services that enable them to compete globally. Huawei brings a wealth of knowledge and experience regarding how to build and operate local video eco-systems and help telcos and partners generate revenue securely and in a transparent manner. Huawei, through global partner agreements, represents the best channel for distributing local digital content globally.

The video application partner alliance is part of Huawei’s inTouch global partner alliance. Huawei aims to aggregate more and more of our partners’ digital services and contents, including digital music and mobile games, on the video platform. Huawei inTouch has so far aggregated over 2 000 partners with over 200 000 high-quality items of digital content. It paid partners revenue worth $25 million in 2014. Content includes digital music, mobile games, videos, API openness, traffic monetisation, and B2B Cloud and M2M activity.